During this visit, you should work with one or more groups of students if you haven't already, and observe your teacher doing the same. For this journal entry, describe your teacher's teaching style. What type of relationships with students does he or she nurture in his or her classes? How do students perceive that power is distributed in the classes? Does this vary within or across the different classes the teacher has? Cite examples from your observations to support your inferences. Remember to reflect on what style of teaching you will gravitate toward and the how you want to be perceived by your students.
Observe a laboratory activity or base your answer on past visits. How does your CT conduct a typical laboratory activity? How does he or she open the activity and organize student groups? How do students learn what they're expected to do during the period? Reflect on your reading about inquiry and your experience with the NECAP inquiry task. How did the laboratory activity you observe prepare students for the type of activities that might show up on the NECAP in the future? What inquiry elements would you strengthen? What science practices do you want to stress when you're teaching?
During my last visit to South Kingstown High School I observed the beginning of an inquiry based laboratory activity in a 9th grade earth science class. The teacher began the class by doing a quick review of her power point slides that the students had already taken notes on in a prior class. The slides covered Newton's third law of motion, the Universal law of gravitation and free fall. After this the teacher quickly went over the homework with her students. She gave the homework to the students who lost the sheet or just did not do it. This was only a few students. The homework was only on the universal law of gravitation, but on the back of the sheet was an example of the equations you may see on a NECAP. All of the beginning class activities were a nice lead into the activity.
The teacher let the students choose their own groups of 3-4 students. The worksheet said using your knowledge of motion , how would you determine the height of the stairwell without measuring the distance. My CT let the students struggle with the paper. I noticed right away that the students were chatty and giggling. If I were to run this lesson, I would not let students pick their own groups. I also would have had the students in smaller groups of 2-3 students. From the research I have done group size can be a factor in productivity if people in the group do not have an assigned job. To my surprise with a bit of prompting for a few of the groups and a bit of time to chat, the students began to really talk it out and try to figure out the task at hand. From a teacher's perspective it was quite a beautiful process. My CT stayed out of the process, but had all of the groups who had finalized their idea check with her. Groups that chose the wrong idea were asked questions. With these questions the students came to the realization on their own that their ideas would not work under these circumstances. Many of the students used their notes from the power point or the worksheet with the equations that you may see on a NECAP exam to help them to come to a decision on how they would accomplish this task.
When I am teaching science, I would like to do more of these type of inquiry activities. Many of the students who breezed through the homewok had Aha moment during this process. Like I mentioned earlier I think that choosing the groups and making them smaller would have been more productive with this assignment. I may have gone over the questions with the students quickly, but I think having the students read the sheet on their own is more consistent with the NECAP. During the NECAP teachers will not be able to go over the questions with the students. My CT as smart to give the students an equation bank. This gets students more familiar with the NECAP process. I felt that the class had a nice flow to it, and the students were excited to put their ideas into practice for the next class. I will definitely activate the students prior knowledge like my CT right before a lab activity. Fantastic Lesson!
Observation/Reflection #3: A Matter of Style
Chose one of the prompts below:During my last visit to South Kingstown High School I observed the beginning of an inquiry based laboratory activity in a 9th grade earth science class. The teacher began the class by doing a quick review of her power point slides that the students had already taken notes on in a prior class. The slides covered Newton's third law of motion, the Universal law of gravitation and free fall. After this the teacher quickly went over the homework with her students. She gave the homework to the students who lost the sheet or just did not do it. This was only a few students. The homework was only on the universal law of gravitation, but on the back of the sheet was an example of the equations you may see on a NECAP. All of the beginning class activities were a nice lead into the activity.
The teacher let the students choose their own groups of 3-4 students. The worksheet said using your knowledge of motion , how would you determine the height of the stairwell without measuring the distance. My CT let the students struggle with the paper. I noticed right away that the students were chatty and giggling. If I were to run this lesson, I would not let students pick their own groups. I also would have had the students in smaller groups of 2-3 students. From the research I have done group size can be a factor in productivity if people in the group do not have an assigned job. To my surprise with a bit of prompting for a few of the groups and a bit of time to chat, the students began to really talk it out and try to figure out the task at hand. From a teacher's perspective it was quite a beautiful process. My CT stayed out of the process, but had all of the groups who had finalized their idea check with her. Groups that chose the wrong idea were asked questions. With these questions the students came to the realization on their own that their ideas would not work under these circumstances. Many of the students used their notes from the power point or the worksheet with the equations that you may see on a NECAP exam to help them to come to a decision on how they would accomplish this task.
When I am teaching science, I would like to do more of these type of inquiry activities. Many of the students who breezed through the homewok had Aha moment during this process. Like I mentioned earlier I think that choosing the groups and making them smaller would have been more productive with this assignment. I may have gone over the questions with the students quickly, but I think having the students read the sheet on their own is more consistent with the NECAP. During the NECAP teachers will not be able to go over the questions with the students. My CT as smart to give the students an equation bank. This gets students more familiar with the NECAP process. I felt that the class had a nice flow to it, and the students were excited to put their ideas into practice for the next class. I will definitely activate the students prior knowledge like my CT right before a lab activity. Fantastic Lesson!